


passed down like folk songs (our love lasts so long)

by televangelists



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, they deserve a soft epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:27:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27012760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/televangelists/pseuds/televangelists
Summary: Jamie is like someone from a daydream, or maybe a past life. She feels like a story from Dani’s childhood; she feels like a song that Dani’s grown up listening to. She’s all short hair and wry humor, all steady hands and reassuring words. She’s nothing like anyone Dani’s ever met, and she looks like someone’s wildest dream.And Dani, who has never truly wished for anything, looks at Jamie’s crooked smile and lets herself want.[Dani and Jamie, before and after; the years together, the years apart.]
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 16
Kudos: 335





	passed down like folk songs (our love lasts so long)

**Author's Note:**

> my brain is nothing but dani and jamie rot. i watched bly manor in one day and haven't stopped thinking about them since, so i wrote this as a coping mechanism. fic playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65sRVx68Ii4VsAiujpgy6S?si=ItlsoTw1RwKiJUChv7o9qA)
> 
> also there's references to hill house, dickinson, and san junipero, so triple gold stars if you notice them all
> 
> (and yes, there's a happy ending because a. they deserve it and b. i'm incapable of writing anything else)

Someone will remember us   
I say  
even in another time.  
  
\- Sappho, from _If Not, Winter_

  
  


Dani has always been selfless. 

It’s her deepest nature, her greatest instinct. She puts others before herself, suffers so that others don’t have to, without ever really knowing why. Sacrifice and selflessness are written into her, built into her bones. Sometimes it feels like a temple, sometimes it feels like a tomb.

 _It’s kind,_ her mother says. _It’s stupid,_ her father says. 

Dani doesn’t know which one is right, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just how she is. 

It’s why she stays with Eddie, plans a wedding even, despite knowing that she’ll never love him the way he loves her. She goes to sleep every night praying that she’ll wake up and feel the way she’s supposed to, and she lets that be enough. 

He gets killed by a speeding car right after they break up, and it’s almost a relief for Dani. Through the grief and the guilt and the agonizing sense of loss, there’s a whisper of freedom, a spark of promise. She won’t have to spend her entire life sacrificing love for safety, and maybe it’s wrong of her to think like that, but she can’t help being relieved anyways. 

She ends up at Bly Manor, her arms full of suitcases and her heart full of hope. She meets Flora, talkative and friendly, and Miles, strange and sullen, and loves them almost immediately. Owen and Hannah fit into Dani’s world with ease, quickly claiming spots in her life until Dani can’t remember what it was like without them.

And then she meets Jamie, and everything changes.

Jamie doesn’t suddenly fit into Dani’s world; it feels more like she’s been there the entire time. There’s something about her that calls out to Dani, that wraps her up in electric, sweet-edged familiarity. It’s like she’s known Jamie as long as she’s known herself. 

Jamie is like someone from a daydream, or maybe a past life. She feels like a story from Dani’s childhood; she feels like a song that Dani’s grown up listening to. She’s all short hair and wry humor, all steady hands and reassuring words. She’s nothing like anyone Dani’s ever met, and she looks like someone’s wildest dream.

And Dani, who has never truly wished for anything, looks at Jamie’s crooked smile and lets herself _want_. 

//

Flora and Miles are sweet kids, but they’re also just _kids_. They’re disobedient and annoying and they lock Dani in a closet, and she starts to feel worn out. She wonders if this job was a mistake.

Then she starts seeing Peter Quint around the house, and her stress levels rise like the tides. She’s jumpy and nervous and exhausted, faking a brave face for as long as she can make it, but it doesn’t last long. 

Miles breaks the glasses that Edmund’s mother gave her after the accident, and Dani can’t take it anymore. She runs outside and collapses behind a plant, letting her tears fall as exhaustion wells up inside of her, spilling over like a cup left under a running faucet. She could stay there all day, and she would have if Jamie hadn’t showed up.

Jamie finds her there behind the plant and talks her down, tells her she cries at least four times a day at Bly, even throws in a joke. Dani doesn’t quite believe her, but she lets Jamie comfort her anyway. 

Jamie smiles encouragingly at her, and Dani’s chest suddenly fills with warmth. She finds herself giving Jamie a small smile back. Jamie nods, then walks away to continue her gardening duties; Dani stands and watches her leave, feeling her heart racing in her chest. 

(Years later, she’ll carry the memory of this moment until it slips through her fingers like water.)

//

Walking around Bly Manor is like walking with ghosts, and Dani can’t help but feel a little scared. It’s as if there’s always someone over her shoulder, waiting, watching. 

There are too many mirrors in the house, and Eddie’s spectre is waiting in every one of them. She lives in a state of constant fear, breaking dishes or dropping them in the sink, wondering if she’s going mad. Jamie worries, and Hannah worries, but Dani can’t bring herself to explain, not yet. 

Still, the fear is getting to be too big to hold by herself.

She finally tells Jamie about Eddie, the two of them huddled under a pile of blankets and pressed together shoulder to shoulder, she expects Jamie to call her insane. Instead, Jamie offers to him, and Dani can’t help but laugh. 

Jamie’s smiling slightly, eyes bright with the cold, and Dani can’t hold back any longer. She leans in and kisses her right in the middle of a sentence, guided by all the longing stares and lingering touches that have led them to this moment. Jamie kisses back, gentle but hungry, and Dani feels like she’s burning from the inside out. This is _it_ \- the feeling she’s been waiting for all her life, the feeling she’s never had before, the feeling that no boy has ever managed to bring out in her.

Edmund appears over her shoulder, looming in foreboding silence, and Dani jerks away from Jamie in panic. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, the words spilling out in a rush. “I’m so sorry.” 

Jamie leaves, and Dani feels her heart leave right along with her. 

//

She stands alone under a starless sky, staring into a bonfire that doesn’t seem warm enough. Eddie stands across from her, his figure blurred by orange flames that dance like a bright mirage in the night, and Dani finds that she is not afraid. 

She’s afraid of losing Jamie, but not him. He’s already lost.

His glasses burn easily, the glass cracking and turning to smoke that blows away in the breeze, and Dani imagines her fear disappearing just the same way.

//

When Jamie comes back, it’s to bring Dani into the woods. It’s pitch black out, their flashlights barely glowing in the dark shadows of the trees, but Dani doesn’t mind. She thinks she’d follow Jamie anywhere.

Still, she can’t let her get off scot-free.

“You’re not leading me out here to kill me, are you?” she asks lightly, and Jamie laughs.

“Keep talking, and I just might,” she says, taking Dani’s hand and pulling her into a small clearing. She casts her flashlight beam onto a small trellis wrapped in vines, white flowers blooming against the darkness.

Dani’s breath catches, because she doesn’t know anything about flowers, but these ones are stunning. 

Jamie tells her about moonflowers, about the work it takes to grow them, and then about her own life. How people aren’t worth the effort you put into them. Dani sits and listens and feels the weight of the world hanging on the ends of Jamie’s bitter words. 

“But sometimes,” Jamie says at last, running her hand gently over the moonflower vines, “once in a blue goddamned moon, I guess someone like this moonflower might just be worth the effort.”

The moonflowers are so pretty in the dark and Jamie is too, all smudged lines and shadowy curves, like the picture on a black and white film reel. Dani has never seen anything more beautiful, and she’s pretty sure that Jamie just told her she loves her, so she doesn’t hesitate to lean in. 

When Jamie kisses her, Dani lets herself be selfish for the first time in her life. 

//

They make it back to Dani’s bed, scattering clothes across the floor, falling into a twisted mess of sheets. Jamie’s fingers catch in Dani’s hair and she laughs against Dani’s mouth, easy and open. Dani waits for the panic to drag her under, but it never comes. 

There’s no fear and no guilt; there’s only Jamie, soft and warm and real. Dani lets herself exhale completely for the first time in months, or maybe years. She feels free, like she’s finally picked the lock on a cage that’s encircled her entire life. 

“Hey,” Jamie whispers, pressing her mouth against Dani’s collarbone. “You alright?” 

“Yeah,” Dani whispers back. “I think I am.” 

Jamie smiles into her skin and pulls Dani even closer. Dani traces the curve of Jamie’s jawline, softly and slowly. 

“You know,” Jamie says, mouth curving into a smirk, “being a gardener and all, I’m pretty good with my hands.” 

Dani grins. “Well, someone’s sure of themself.” 

“You doubting me, Poppins?” 

“I’m telling you to put your money where your mouth is.” 

Jamie laughs and slides one hand up the inside of Dani’s thigh. As Dani’s head hits the pillow, biting down against a stifled moan, she imagines herself blooming under Jamie’s hands, blooming like the plants Jamie grows in the greenhouse, blooming brighter and bigger than any flower in the world. 

Afterwards, they lie curled up together, tangled together like golden thread. Dani runs her hands through Jamie’s hair and thinks that love and possession may be opposites, but love and freedom feel achingly similar. 

It’s the last thing she remembers thinking before she falls asleep.

//

They don’t talk about it the day after. There’s no big conversation, no definition of terms. They simply fall together like planets into orbit. One day it’s Dani, staring at Jamie from across the kitchen; another day and it’s Jamie, lying in Dani’s bed like she’s lived there her entire life. 

Dani has never felt anything so right. 

“There are other nights,” Jamie tells her one night, when she has to leave for home. Dani wants to protest, but Flora is sick and Henry Wingrave isn’t answering any of her calls. As much as she wants Jamie to stay, it’s selfish to expect it.

And Dani isn’t selfish. She never has been.

“There will be other nights,” Jamie says, tucking a strand of hair behind Dani’s ear. 

Dani leans into the touch and reaches for Jamie’s hand, wanting one more minute. “You promise?” 

Jamie leans into her, presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I promise.” 

“Alright then,” Dani says, and lets her go, even though she doesn’t want to. 

As Jamie leaves, Dani can’t help wondering how many other nights they’ll really have. 

Two hours later, when she’s bound and gagged in the basement, desperately fighting for breath, a soldier in a battle she barely understands, she thinks that maybe they won’t have any.

//

Peter takes Miles.

Rebecca doesn’t take Flora.

Rebecca lets her go and Dani grabs Flora and runs, runs out the doors and down the driveway. Her legs are unsteady, her steps falling unevenly, but terror lends her strength. Flora runs along with her, their hands clasped so tightly that Dani doesn’t think they’ll ever come undone.

“Come on,” she says, forcing the words out between breaths, “come on, come on. We have to keep going.” She doesn’t know which of them she’s trying to reassure. 

They’re halfway down the driveway when Dani senses a shift; a coldness in the air, a chill running up her spine like the caress of a knife blade. Flora turns, twisting away from her and breaking away like a river spilling over a dam. 

“Miles!” Flora screams. “Miles!” 

“It’s too late for him,” Dani says, grabbing for her. “It’s too late, we have to keep going, Flora, _stop_ \- ” 

And then there’s a hand around her throat, cold and wet, cutting her breaths as easily as tearing petals from a flower. Dani chokes and gasps, blackness flickering around the edges of her vision. Flora is screaming somewhere, the sound flat and distant, and with her last sliver of consciousness, Dani tries to reach out for her. 

Her hands meet thin air, and the Lady of the Lake drags her unconscious body up the stairs to the west wing. 

//

Dani wasn’t the one she wanted, in the end. It was Flora. 

Flora, who's as delicate as her namesake suggests. Flora, who’s being carried to the lake and slowly lowered into a watery grave. Flora, whose eight years in this world are nowhere near enough

Dani wakes just in time, her body aching, her throat feeling like it’s been ripped to shreds. She finds her way down the stairs, out the open door, down the driveway. She half-collapses at the edge of the lake, stumbling into the water, feeling it pool around her legs in freezing contempt. 

The Lady of the Lake is facing away from her, walking deeper into the lake with calm and measured steps. There’s a wake following her movements, a trail leading into the water, and it’s a path that Dani knows she has to walk. 

She has to try to save Flora, even if it costs her own life.

So she shouts after the Lady, her voice worn and cracking but still strong through it all. She thinks of love and loss and longing, of two things becoming one, of split-aparts finding their missing halves. She thinks of Jamie, dappled in sunlight, flowers blooming in her hands. 

Dani thinks of Jamie and the words come to her easily, falling from her lips like they’ve been waiting for this moment since she stepped foot in Bly. 

“It’s you,” she shouts, her throat raw and burning. “It’s me. It’s us.” 

The Lady stops, turns towards her. Dani takes a step closer, her breath nothing but a whisper, hoping desperately. “It’s you, it’s me,” she repeats. “It’s us.” 

The Lady walks towards her, pushing Flora into her arms, and stands in front of Dani for a heartstopping moment. Dani forces herself to inhale, to look at the faceless figure in front of her. 

There’s a twitch at the corners of the ghostly white mouth, something almost like relief playing across the empty eye sockets, and the Lady walks into her, melts into her like ice melting into water. 

Dani holds Flora tightly, falls forward into the shallows as she wades towards the edge of the lake. 

“Dani!” someone yells, and then Jamie is there in the water, swimming towards them in confident strokes, leading them to shore. Dani’s shaking, clutching Flora like a life preserver, not sure who’s saving whom. 

“It’s you, it’s me, it’s us,” she says, again and again and again, until the words start to lose their meaning. “It’s you, it’s me, it’s us.” 

Jamie pulls her onto the bank and wraps her arms around her, around Flora, around both of them. “It’s okay,” she says. “Dani, it’s okay, I’m here. Flora’s okay. You’re okay.” 

“It’s you,” Dani says desperately. “It’s me…” 

“It’s us,” Jamie says, pressing her forehead against Dani’s. “It’s us, alright? We’re okay.” 

There’s shouts in the distance, familiar voices ringing through the night. Hannah, Owen, Henry Wingrave. Dani can’t make sense of their words, and she doesn’t try. She’s too exhausted to do anything but breathe. She feels like she’s dying, but Flora is alive and that’s what’s important. 

“I’m here,” Jamie says softly. “I’ve got you.” She holds Dani tightly, like she’s trying to hold her bones together. Dani thinks vaguely of skeletons and graveyards, and wonders if that’s her fate.

She doesn’t want to close her eyes, but she’s so very tired. Jamie’s body is warm against hers, and her arms feel half like home and half like heaven, and Dani lets herself sink into them without caring which one is the truth.

//

The Lady of the Lake isn’t gone, not really. She’s somewhere inside Dani, pacing around her ribcage, filling her blood, spreading through her veins. Dani feels her, feels every part of her, and it’s absolutely terrifying. 

She tries to explain this to Jamie, tries to explain the quiet sense of violence rushing through her like floodwater. Tries to explain the cold rage, the silent fury, the way she feels haunted by something she can’t quite see.

“I know there’s this thing hidden,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed to steady herself. Jamie sits next to her, not quite close enough to touch. “This empty, angry, lonely beast. Watching me. Matching my movements. It’s just out of sight…” 

Jamie’s eyes are full of concern, and Dani feels terrible for scaring her, but she isn’t brave enough to face this alone. 

“It’s waiting,” she continues, and the inevitable truth of her words pulls at something deep in her chest. “ _She’s_ waiting. And at some point, she’s going to take me.” 

Jamie’s silent for a minute. Dani turns to face her, tears crowding the edges of her eyes. 

“Do you want company?” Jamie asks finally, meeting Dani’s gaze steadily. She raises a hand between them, holds up her pinky. “While you wait for your beast in the jungle. Do you want company?” 

Dani looks at Jamie and feels her heart bloom like a moonflower. Jamie is looking at her with something unspeakably tender in her eyes, her hand hovering between them in a half-formed promise, waiting for her. Waiting for Dani like it’s the only thing she’s ever needed to do. Too bright, too soft, too lovely. Too good.

Dani doesn’t know if she deserves this, but god knows she wants it more than she’s ever wanted anything in her life. 

So for once, she lets herself become selfish. She wraps her finger around Jamie’s, intertwining their lives with a simple motion. Jamie presses her mouth gently against Dani’s knuckles, sealing the pact with pinky promise kisses. 

In this moment, Dani feels like theirs is the only love that’s ever existed. 

//

The Wingraves move out of Bly Manor. 

“Will you visit us?” Flora asks, hugging her, and Dani’s heart aches. She’ll miss Flora and Miles dearly; she knows that their absence will leave a hole in her life that will never quite be filled by time and distance.

She already knows that she’ll never visit. 

“That depends,” she says, smiling at Flora. “Where are you going?”

“America, probably,” Henry Wingrave says. They’re standing in the foyer, surrounded by boxes. Jamie’s outside, piling luggage into the back of the car. There’s light pouring in from the open doors, and the house seems bright in a way that Dani’s never seen it before. “For a while, anyway.” 

Dani nods, understanding. They can’t stay here. 

She can’t stay here, either. 

They say their goodbyes, and Henry hugs her before leaving. Dani and Jamie stand in the doorway and watch as the black car disappears at the end of the driveway.

And then it’s just the two of them. 

As Jamie turns to her with a smile, wreathed in sunlight and leaning against the doorframe, Dani thinks that _just the two of them_ is the way she likes it best.

When they drive away from Bly Manor, Jamie behind the wheel and Dani sitting in shotgun, Dani doesn’t look back. 

//

Jamie brings her to a diner two towns away, and they sit at the counter together. Jamie asks where she wants to go, what she wants to do. She talks about Vermont and snow and next Christmas, easily and confidently, like it’s a sure thing for them.

Dani doesn’t know how to tell her that even tomorrow doesn’t feel like a sure thing for her. Jamie sees the future clearly, but Dani’s vision is hazy, shrouded in uncertainty like the mist that hangs low over the lake.

“I don’t think we should plan Christmas,” she says. “You know...it’s a ways away.” 

Jamie’s face falls, and Dani hates herself for doing that to her. A hushed melancholy settles over them, a tranquil gravity dragging them down. Dani digs her heels in and tries to remain. 

“One day at a time, I know,” Jamie says quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Dani says. “I’m just being…” 

“Realistic?” Jamie asks, finishing the sentence for her. She smiles at Dani softly. “One day at a time is fine by me. As long as those days are with you, Poppins, one day at a time is what we’ve got. It’s what everybody’s got, when you get down to it.” 

// 

They move to a town on the outskirts of London, close enough to get to the city easily but far enough that it still feels like the only town in England some days. They pool their money and buy a store on Main street. It’s small and shabby, but they pour love and effort into it, and eventually it turns into a beautiful little shop.

Like a plant, Jamie says. We just had to give it time to grow.

Dani paints a sign to hang over the door - _The_ _Leafling -_ and Jamie fills the place with plants. Dani sits behind the counter and watches as Jamie trims flowers or re-pots seedlings, her movements steady and graceful as she brings beauty to life in this peaceful, quiet place. 

Jamie tries to teach her about plants, and Dani listens, but more because she loves Jamie’s voice than because she’s understanding any of it. 

“See,” Jamie says one day. She’s sitting on top of the counter, Dani sitting on the chair behind the register. “You can’t see it, obviously, but trees have such a complex root system. It’s bloody amazing, really. The roots spread out into the soil and create this entire network until they’re the size of the tree itself. So when you’re sitting underneath a tree, you’re really sitting between two trees; the one above you and the one below you.” 

Dani gives her a lazy smile. “Hm.” 

“You’re not listening, are you,” Jamie says, laughing softly. “That’s bloody rude of you, Poppins.” 

“I got it,” Dani protests. “Plants. Trees. Giant roots. _Underground_ trees.” 

“There you go, then,” Jamie nods. She pulls Dani in for a quick kiss. When she pulls back, Dani rests her head in the space between Jamie’s neck and shoulder. 

As Dani looks around the shop, small and slightly faded but warm and bright and full of love, she thinks that if she were a tree, this is where she’d put her roots down.

//

Time passes; days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and they’re still together. They move into a small apartment above the flower shop and build it into a home. Dani feels the Lady inside her still, but she hasn’t been taken yet. 

She’s still herself, and she’s still alive, and she still has Jamie.

Sometimes when Dani looks at Jamie, she drowns in panic at the thought of losing her. Jamie is her heart, her soul, the love of her life, and Dani just looks at her and wants _more_. 

More months. More years. A lifetime.

Infinity. 

There’s no point in wishing for more, but Dani closes her eyes and blows out the candles anyway. However much time they’ll have together, Dani already knows that it won’t be enough. There aren’t enough years in the world to hold her longing; there aren’t enough moments in the universe to hold her love. When it comes to Jamie, Dani wants nothing short of forever.

And yet all they have is all they’ve got, and each day is nothing short of a blessing, so Dani tucks her wishes for _forever_ into a corner of her heart and lets herself be grateful for what she has.

//

On their first anniversary, Jamie brings her a white flower in a small glass vase. “Got you something,” she says offhandedly, but the gentle way she sets it on the counter belies the nonchalance in her voice.

Dani stares at the flower, smiling. It takes her back to a certain night, a magical night where pieces of the moon bloomed in the dark and a familiar stranger kissed her like a love confession. “Is that a moonflower?” 

“Yeah,” Jamie says, looking pleased that she recognized it. 

“They’re really rare, you know,” Dani teases. 

Jamie gives her a lightning-quick grin and leans forward, bracing herself against the counter. “I have a problem,” she says. “Or rather, _we’ve_ got a problem, Poppins. You see, I’m not sick of you at all.” There’s a smile hovering at the corner of her mouth, and Dani’s heart flutters like a flower petal in the breeze. “I’m actually pretty in love with you, as it turns out.” 

The words slide into Dani’s heart like they were made to live inside of it, filling her chest with warmth, and this is it; this is what coming home feels like.

Dani leans over the counter and kisses Jamie once, twice, three times, right against her smile. She grabs Jamie’s hand and pulls her towards the back, up the stairs to their apartment, into their bed.

“Remember last time I showed you moonflowers?” Jamie laughs, climbing into Dani’s lap as she pulls off her shirt. “Got laid then, too. Roses have nothing on these things.” 

“You are so full of it,” Dani replies, resting her hands on Jamie’s hips and pulling her closer. 

“Rather be full of _you_ , if you catch my drift.” 

“Oh my god,” Dani mutters. Jamie laughs again, then pushes Dani back against the bed and puts her mouth to better use. 

They lie in bed together afterwards, and it almost feels like the first night all over again. Almost, but not quite. As Dani rests her head against Jamie’s chest, listening to her heart beat, there’s a cold and quiet shiver running through her.. The Lady of the Lake, still there. 

Not taking, yet. Just living. But still there. Always there.

Dani pulls away from Jamie, scared that she’ll hurt her somehow. She doesn’t ever want Jamie to feel the kind of cold fear that plagues her bones sometimes, the liquid dread that ebbs and flows like the ocean’s tides.

“Hey,” Jamie says, raising her head. “You okay?” 

“Are you sure you still want this?” Dani whispers, rolling over onto her side. Jamie rolls over too, so that they’re lying face to face, and reaches for her hand. 

“Am I sure I still want what, Poppins?” Jamie asks. “Cause if you’re talking about the sex, I don’t wanna give that up. Ever.” 

“No,” Dani says, laughing despite herself. “Me. Are you sure you still...I mean, I know I’m not that easy to love, and I know that our situation isn’t ideal, and I know that there’s no way anyone will ever be able to understand what we are or how it happened…” 

“Poppins,” Jamie says. She leans forward until their foreheads touch, draping one arm around Dani’s waist, pulling her close. “Of course I still want this. Still want you. I’ll always want you.” 

Dnai exhales. “I know. I just - ” 

“Listen,” Jamie says. “I’m going to say something important, so listen real good.” She dips her head, kisses Dani’s collarbone. “It may be hard to explain how we got here, but it will never be hard for me to explain why I love you. And I think that makes all the difference.” 

There’s something uncurling in Dani’s chest, unfolding like a flower in bloom, warming her like sunlight. She looks at Jamie’s face, so kind and good and loving, and feels herself falling with a soft place to land. 

She tastes salt, and it takes her a moment to realize that it’s from her own tears.

“Oh, hell,” Jamie mumbles, reaching out to touch Dani’s face. “Did I just make you cry?” 

“Happy tears,” Dani assures her. “I’m just - god, I’m really in love with you, you know that?” 

“Good,” Jamie says, smiling now. “I’d hate to think it didn’t go both ways.” 

//

They go to Vermont on their third anniversary. Jamie sees a picture of Vermont foliage during autumn, the tops of the trees burning in red and golden orange like living flames, and immediately decides that she’d rather see that than snow. Dani doesn’t mind; she’ll go whenever and wherever Jamie wants.

Vermont is breathtaking in October. The air is crisp and smells like something clean and sweet, and brightly colored leaves fall down around them like the sky is raining flowers made of fire. Jamie collects some of them and presses them between the pages of a book. 

“Look, Poppins,” she says, holding up the book. “Would you fancy _leafing_ through this with me?” 

Dani just laughs.

They stay in an old inn that’s got large windows and a wide, sprawling front porch. Jamie leaves the windows open in their room, and Dani raids the guest cupboards for extra blankets. They drink tea on the porch in the mornings, Jamie making it for both of them, because Dani still can’t make it properly after all this time. 

It’s beautiful and blissful, and Dani loves it. It feels good to create new memories here, to feel like America is more than just a place she once fled. 

One morning when they’re outside on the old loveseat on the porch, Jamie’s head resting in Dani’s lap, Dani starts to wonder if she likes it here better than in England. 

“Do you miss home?” she asks Jamie, running a hand through her hair. 

Jamie looks up at her, eyes bright with happiness. “I miss the flat a bit, yeah. Miss my plants, too. But I don’t miss home, cause I’m already there.” 

“Really,” Dani says, smiling at her. 

“Really,” Jamie answers. “Wherever you are is home for me, Poppins. Everywhere else is just some place in the world.” 

Dani leans down to kiss her. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” 

“That if we have sex out here on the porch, we’ll definitely get kicked out?” Jamie flips them over so that Dani’s on the bottom, grinning down at her. “Worth the risk, I’d say.” 

//

Three years turn into six years, nine, twelve. Dani and Jamie learn each other inside out; their lives, their love. They fall into comforting routines, fit into each other’s spaces like pieces of the same puzzle. They fill their apartment with things that belong to the both of them rather than being _Dani’s_ or _Jamie’s._

The flower shop remains busy, and new flowers bloom and die and bloom again with the turning of the seasons. It’s growth, Dani thinks as she watches Jamie grow slightly older, slightly softer; as she looks into the mirror and watches the passing years settle onto her reflection. It’s growth.

Owen starts up a restaurant not too far away from them, and they go to visit him once a month. It feels good, like visiting family. 

After all they’ve been through together, Dani decides, he _is_ family. 

Jamie installs a bookcase next to their bed and fills it with well-worn, pre-owned books from the library nearby. She reads out loud to Dani sometimes, in the quiet parts of the night when the windows are open and the breeze is warm and their bed feels like the only place on earth. Dani curls up with her and lets the words wash over her as she feels her heart fill with love. 

The comforter on their bed is a thrift store reject and their furniture is outdated and their cupboards are filled with mismatched cutlery, and their apartment’s not just a house. It’s a home. 

Dani wakes up by Jamie’s side every morning and makes her shitty coffee in a pot with a chipped handle, and Jamie brings her flowers and picks out books that she thinks Dani will like. Letters from Owen are addressed to _Dani and Jamie Clayton._ Their rings stop being jewelry and instead become a part of them, promises wrapped around their fingers in everlasting gold. 

The days slide by in warmth and comfort and laughter and love, and Dani thinks that maybe this is peace.

// 

And yet there’s another side to the story, because there always is. For Dani, it’s the thing that lives inside her; the empty, angry, lonely thing. It lies sleeping most of the time, but she can always faintly sense it. 

It’s powerful, and it’s hungry. Sometimes Dani presses her hand to her chest and feels like she contains an ocean, like she’s holding back the waves with nothing but her breath and bones. 

The thing about the ocean is that you can never tell the tides to wait.

Thirteen years after everything that happened at Bly Manor, thirteen years after Dani and Jamie build a life together, the Lady comes to collect her debts. 

//

It’s subtle, at first. A faint reflection, a smudge in the corner of her eye. Dani blinks, and she’s missed it.

But it grows stronger every day. Dani finds fear chasing her throughout the hour of the day, hovering in the shadows, waiting for her. The Lady stares at her from every reflection, and water starts haunting Dani like a bloodstain on the wall.

She doesn’t want to tell Jamie at first, because Jamie deserves better than that, but the Lady appears in the sink when Dani’s washing up the dinner dishes, and the secret breaks just like the plate that Dani drops when she realizes. 

“It’s her,” she says, burying her face in Jamie’s neck. “It’s her. She’s coming for me.” 

“Hey,” Jamie says, comforting her. “Hey. Come here, baby.” She wraps Dani into her arms, and Dani wants to cry, because it doesn’t feel as safe as it used to. 

“She’s coming,” Dani repeats. “She’s coming to take me.” 

“Nobody is going anywhere,” Jamie says firmly. “You’re still here.” 

“Jamie,” Dani whispers, tears stinging her eyes. “She’s going to take me. You know it has to happen.” 

Jamie’s eyes are full of tears now too, but she’s not letting them fall. She’s always been the tougher one, Dani knows.

“Not yet, do you hear me?” Jamie says, more like a prayer than a question. “Not yet.” 

“Not yet,” Dani murmurs, willing the Lady to be listening. “Not yet.” 

Jamie holds her even closer. Dani dreads the moment she’ll have to let go.

//

Dani starts dreaming of Bly. 

The manor, wrapped in vines. The west wing, shrouded in shadow. The lake, draped in mist, pulling her in like the moon pulls the tides. 

Water follows her; dripping from her hands after she washes up, clinging to her body when she walks in the rain, spilling across the floor when she runs the bath. It’s a calling, a beckoning. There’s a summons in the depths of every pool she gazes into. 

No matter how hard she tries not to, Dani starts to slip away. She can feel herself fading, growing weaker as the Lady grows stronger. She finds herself surrounded by water, searching for the Lady despite herself. 

She’s haunted everywhere; in sinks and bathtubs, in mirrors and windows. There’s too much water. Too many different kinds. 

She’s tired of trying not to drown.

Jamie does her best to hold on, and Dani hates that she can feel herself slipping away even when Jamie’s arms are around her. She doesn’t want to drift. She wants to anchor herself to Jamie, to moor in her harbor and seek refuge from the stormy sea.

She knows that she doesn’t have forever, so she tries to savor every last minute they get together. She gathers moments like blossoms, collecting them in the garden of her mind. Jamie, laughing as they lie in bed together; Jamie, building castles out of sugar packets at the diner down the street; Jamie, twirling her around as they dance in the kitchen by the light of the refrigerator, a soft rock song spilling from the radio above the sink. It all comes back to Jamie. 

Dani doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to keep these memories, but she tries anyways. If there’s anything she wants to take with her when she goes, it’s Jamie; if she can’t have her, memories are the next best thing. 

//

“I love you,” Jamie whispers one night. They’re lying in bed, tangled together in a warm and comfortable mess, Dani’s head pressed against Jamie’s chest and Jamie’s hands knotted in Dani’s hair. “I really, really love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Dani says. 

“It’s you, Poppins,” Jamie says, kissing the top of her head. “It’s you. I love you, and I’ll love you until the end of time. I’ll love you forever, Dani.” 

_We don’t have forever,_ Dani wants to say, but there’s something unmistakably true about Jamie’s words. Theirs feels like a love that will transcend time, that will weave itself into the golden fabric of eternity. Dani wants to believe that it will, wants to believe it so badly that her chest aches. 

“I love you,” she says again, because it’s all she can say. “I love you, Jamie.” 

And it’s all she can say, but it’s all she _needs_ to say. Her love for Jamie is the truest thing about her. 

They fall asleep together, and for once, Dani’s dreams are free of ghosts.

//

She wakes up with one hand reaching for Jamie’s throat, the Lady’s blood raging through her veins, and knows that she’s run out of time. 

She wants to hold on to what she has; she wants to cling to life like the last flowers before the frost. She wants to lie down next to Jamie and never get up again.

But she can’t, because she can’t risk Jamie. Not ever. Not for even one more day.

So she reaches for the book that’s on the nightstand, a story that they’ll never get to finish together, and tears out one of the blank pages. When she’s done writing, she leaves the note folded neatly on top of the book.

She presses a kiss to Jamie’s forehead, lingers for one more minute. She stares at Jamie's sleeping face, tries to seal her love into the fickle, bittersweet permanence of memory.

She closes the door on the way out.

//

The lake is colder than she remembers. Dani walks slowly into the water, feeling the tides within her rise like they’ve found their way home. She isn’t afraid, not anymore. 

The Lady walks with her, walks within her. She guides her into the lake, leads her to the bottom. 

In the end, Dani Clayton is not afraid.

Right before the air in her lungs turns to water, she thinks of Jamie.

//

Jamie finds her at the bottom of the lake, and Dani fears that more than anything. She can hear Jamie screaming the words, throwing the desperate prayer of _it’s you, it’s me, it’s us_ into the water like a rope to a drowning person, and she wants. She wants so badly, but she wouldn’t. She would never. 

She thinks of a conversation they had long ago, a conversation about love and possession. She understood then, and she understands now. When Jamie reaches out her hand, Dani doesn’t take it. 

She loves Jamie, and so she lets her go.

//

She becomes the Lady of the Lake, or the Lady of the Lake becomes her. It’s not like death; it’s more like dreaming. 

She sleeps, she wakes, she sleeps again. The world turns on, drifts by like clouds across the sky. She sleeps, she wakes. 

She forgets. 

//

Time is different at the bottom of a lake. Minutes and hours, days and weeks, months and years; they twist together, dissolve in the water around her. Dani dreams her way through time, forwards and backwards, never quite far enough to reach something that she’s missing. 

There’s something she feels like she should remember. Someone, maybe. A coffee pot, a ring, a plant with small white blossoms...

The current washes over her face, and Dani forgets.

//

There’s something. There’s someone. 

Dani remembers. 

She can’t recall a face or a name, but she remembers a feeling. It’s a golden feeling, warm and infinite, a flame at the bottom of the lake. It burns steadily, like the sun. It’s loving completely, and being loved just the same. 

The love wells up in her, spills through her like fallingwater. She holds it close to her heart and promises never to let go.

//

Sometimes, when the moon hangs low over the lake, curved into a half crescent like the petal of a flower, Dani thinks that there’s something she should be remembering. 

It’s something fleeting, something beautiful. Something rare. 

Something. Someone. 

Dani can’t remember. 

But when she reaches for the feeling, it’s still there. It’s like she’s bathed in warmth, in love. She can't hold on to her memories, but it feels like they’re holding on to her anyways. 

It’s not peace, but it’s close enough. 

//

She learns how to live with the lake, how to live with the Lady. There are no rules, no laws, nothing but the endless silence and stillness of waters that have always been meant for eternal sleep. It’s quiet. 

Quiet, but no longer violent. Dani has seen to this. 

The Lady of the Lake is different now, and her waters no longer drown or suffocate. They simply exist, content to lie in restful calm. 

Dani may have died, but she’s determined that others will live. 

//

Time passes. Time doesn’t pass. She sleeps, she wakes, she sleeps again. 

She becomes the Lady, or maybe the Lady becomes her. Dani can feel herself, the true Dani, but she can feel the Lady as well. 

She learns, and she sleeps, and she dreams. 

//

She can dream herself into any body of water, something she learns after months or maybe years. She can follow the tides across the ocean, can fall with the rapids, can drift across the surface of a pond like the breeze. 

She dreams and dreams. She takes what the water gives her. 

Eventually, the water gives Dani _her_. 

//

Dani isn’t quite sure who _she_ is. She’s a woman, older than Dani was when she first sank to the bottom of the lake. Dani can’t remember her face, but something about her feels beautifully familiar. 

Dani doesn’t know this woman, but she loves her. She loves her easily and completely, like she’s done so before; in another time, in another life. It’s the simplest thing she can ever remember doing. 

She loves her like a reflex, like a memory, like it’s the only truth living inside her bones. 

The woman stares into the water every night, fills a bathtub and watches over it the way most people watch the sunset, and Dani is always there to greet her. 

She knows the woman can’t see her, and Dani wouldn’t show herself even if she could. There’s something in her that vaguely remembers the sense of being haunted by a past that refused to stay buried, and Dani never wants to do that to someone she loves. 

So she lingers in the water, looks at a woman who can’t see her, and feels loved. 

//

The years go by; Dani knows this because the woman gets older. Dani watches it happen, watches her hair fade to grey and her laugh lines become softer. She’s still more beautiful than anything Dani’s ever seen. 

It’s growth, Dani thinks. 

Nothing grows at the bottom of the lake.

//

Dani starts to dream of things besides water. 

She dreams of a soft light, a door that’s always left just a few inches open. She wants to see behind it, wants to walk through, but it’s never quite possible. Every night, she’s beckoned to a threshold that she can’t cross. 

She tries again, and again. She doesn’t get tired, doesn’t get angry. She knows that whatever lies behind the door, it’s worth the wait. 

She keeps trying. 

One day at a time.

//

One night, Dani is drifting through a dreamy haze when something calls to her, pulls her awake. She feels something stirring inside her, shifting into place like a key fitting into a lock. For the first time since she came to the lake, she feels like her true self.

Not the lake. Not the Lady. Just Dani Clayton.

Just Dani.

It’s as if someone’s written her into the stars, forged her into the universe. It’s like her story has been passed down to those in another lifetime. She feels reborn. 

She feels like she’s blooming. 

And there’s still something calling to her. _Someone_ calling to her. There’s that light, that door, that familiar warmth. 

She doesn’t hesitate. She climbs out of the lake, climbs out of her body, and follows the call. 

The door is open a crack as usual, and it opens the rest of the way at a touch of her hand. 

She finds herself in a small apartment, the walls dark, the shadows long. The only light comes from the bathroom, the soft glow of a nightlight lingering like a candle in the window. 

There’s a woman sleeping in a chair in front of the door, and when Dani sees her face, it’s like her soul has been set on fire. 

It’s _her_. 

Dani stands and stares at her, feels the warmth burning in her chest, pushing out the tides. She thinks of rings and moonflowers and a shared bed, and yes, she remembers. She remembers everything. 

She remembers Jamie.

Dani reaches out and lays a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, a touch that’s too solid for any ghost. Jamie opens her eyes, turns slowly.

“Poppins?” she asks, her voice fragile with hope. 

“Jamie,” Dani breathes out. “Jamie, it’s me. I’m here. I’m finally here.”

Jamie stands up and faces her properly, looking at Dani like she’s studying her favorite painting. There’s something filling her eyes; a sad, hopeful, beautiful love. 

“Dani,” she says. “It’s really you?” 

“It’s really me,” Dani says. Her heart throws itself against her ribs, aching. She takes Jamie’s hand, and for a moment, she’s back in a darkened driveway, reaching for Jamie’s hand for the very first time, drawn by an inexplicable magnetic gravity. 

“You came back,” Jamie says. “I knew you would. I never gave up on you.” 

Dani puts her arms around Jamie and pulls her into a hug. All the things they don’t have words for are left between them, unspoken but understood. Thousands of moments of grief and loss, thousands of memories of light and hope. An ocean of loneliness. A world of love. 

“What now?” Jamie asks, pulling back. “What do we do now?” 

“We can go on,” Dani says, gesturing towards the door. It’s wide open now, leading into a golden light. The air smells like sea salt and summer flowers, and she can hear the faint crash of waves. “If you want.” 

Jamie hesitates, and Dani wants, wants so badly. She doesn’t know where the light will lead them, but she feels in her bones that it’s somewhere good. It’s somewhere peaceful. 

“Where to?” Jamie asks. 

“That’s the thing about adventures,” Dani says, remembering something that Jamie said many years ago. “You don’t know.” 

“Then I won’t know,” Jamie says. “As long as you’re with me, Poppins, I’ll go anywhere.” She steps forward slightly, letting the light wash over her; as Dani watches, time unravels and winds itself backwards. Years fall from Jamie’s shoulders like leaves in autumn, worry and care disappearing from her face, until she looks just the same as she did on the day that Dani left. 

Dani smiles, reaches for Jamie’s hand. They walk forward until they’re standing at the very edge of the light, walking on the border between worlds. Walking on a dream. 

“Will we remember each other?" Jamie asks, her voice softer than Dani's ever heard it. 

“Yes,” Dani says, and the word carries the weight of the universe. It’s truth, it’s love, legacy. “Yes, we will. And even if we don’t, we’ll still love each other.” 

Jamie smiles at her, her eyes filled with tears but shining with love. Dani takes her hand, and together the two of them walk into the golden immortality of forever. 

//

They fall together, and they land together too. 

The first thing Dani realizes is that she’s still holding Jamie’s hand. 

She opens her eyes slowly, looks around. They’re sitting on a beach, warm sunlight pouring down on them. The waves are a calm and perfect blue, rising and falling like the rhythm of life. Dani looks to her left and sees a town in the distance, tucked into the edge of the coast, red roofs bright against the green of the trees. 

Jamie opens her eyes, blinks. “Where are we?” 

“I don’t know,” Dani says. She turns around to look behind her, and her heart swells.

There’s a beach house behind them, resting on a green yard stretching to the edge of the sand. The house is painted a pale blue, and the porch has a loveseat surrounded by potted plants. To the right, a small greenhouse is attached; to the left, there’s a driveway with an old station wagon parked in it. A string of cans trails from the car’s bumper, as if someone’s just gotten married.

It’s Jamie’s old wagon, Dani realizes. Jamie’s, which must mean - 

“Is this our house?” Jamie asks, putting the pieces together as the same time Dani does. Still in perfect rhythm with her, even after all this time. 

“I think so,” Dani says, laughing slightly at the insanity of it all. “Yeah, I think it is.”

She closes her eyes and searches herself for the Lady, but there’s nothing there; there’s only herself. Her voice and her words and her love for Jamie. 

“She in there still?” Jamie asks, pressing a hand to Dani’s chest. Dani shakes her head.

“Just me,” she says, and Jamie’s face breaks out into a smile that rivals the sun. 

“Look,” Dani says, catching Jamie’s gaze. Jamie looks back at her, so kind and beautiful, so good. “I don’t quite know where we are, or how we got here. But it’s enough for me, if it’s enough for you.” 

“It’s just you and me, isn’t it, Poppins,” Jamie says. “I reckon that’s more than enough for me.” 

She stands up, pulling Dani to her feet, and they start walking towards their house. Dani laces their fingers together, and Jamie leans into her shoulder, and it’s enough. It's more than enough.

It’s peace.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thymewars)


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